Zenith Zoysia Grass Seed (6 Lb.) 100% Pure Seed

My wife and I bought a new house 2 years ago, with a huge oak tree in the front yard. I don't think the previous owner had raked in 20 years, so half of our front yard was buried under 2 feet of partially decomposed leaves. The rest was a scraggly mix of weeds. I wanted to replace this mess with a proper zoysiagrass lawn, and I did not want to pay for sod; so I bought 6 pounds of Zenith seed. It took a ton of work just to get in (kill the entire previous "lawn", ph test the soil, till the entire lawn, mix in the appropriate amount of lime and fertilizer, lay the seed down, rake it in, etc). I put the seed down the last week of April. Once in, the seeds took about two weeks to sprout, and once sprouted, grew much slower than the weeds. It was a constant struggle to keep the grass ahead of the weeds (mow every weekend, post emergent herbicide treatment every month, spot treatment in between). Now, heading into the fall, I would say I have 90% coverage, and a generally nice lawn. I expect that by the end of next summer it will be completely grown in, and beautiful. I can't stress how much work it took to have this success. I saved thousands of dollars, so it was definitely worth it, but if you want to just throw down seed, set your sprinklers, and come out next month to a perfect lawn, this is NOT the product for you. I have a serious suspicion that most of the negative reviews for this product are folks that fall in this category.

At first I was pleasantly surprised when the seed sprouted in just one week compared to the 3 it said it would take on the manufacturer's instruction sheet, but what I wasn't prepared for was the overwhelming amount of maintenance it takes just to grow this damn lawn in. My front yard is about 1000 sqare feet. I tilled the soil, threw it through screens to get out all the weeds/roots/plugs/grass, sprayed roundup on the area several times, then repeated with the screens and clearing on 3 separate occasions before I planted. The goal of this was to severely reduce the number of weeds and bad grass from growing back with the new seed, and yet despite this the number of weeds that grew in with the seed OUTNUMBERED the grass seedlings. I followed the instructions on the care sheet to spray Crossbow 2-4D herbacide on the lawn to kill the weeds, but rather than killing any weeds it just killed a patch of the grass instead! So needless to say you CANNOT use ANY herbacide on this lawn - if you want to remove the weeds you have to do it on your hands and knees, one by one. I have spent over 200 hours now weeding my front lawn. Every time I clear the weeds a new set grows in. I clear them, another set grows in. And contrary to the MFR stating that this grass will "choke" out other weeds and grasses, the weeds and other grasses instead choke out the Zoysia! FALSE MARKETING!!! The grass grows at 1/4 the speed of weeds, they overtake it easily, and the job of weeding this lawn is NEVER DONE! I am now 4 months since I originally seeded and am still spending at least 20 hours a week pulling weeds by hand! I should also mention I used 5/6lbs on my front lawn which is enough to do 5x the area (they say the more seed you use initially, the faster it grows in and the less maintenance) and despite this after 4 months I still have patches of dirt still open... Everything this company puts in their marketing is BS I WOULD NEVER EVER BUY THIS GRASS SEED AGAIN. I SINCERELY WARN ANYONE CONSIDERING THIS SEED TO JUST BUY SOD. YOU WILL BE SO MUCH HAPPIER IN THE END - AND THE HIGHER COST WILL PAY ITSELF BACK OVER AND OVER COMPARED TO THE HUNDREDS OF HOURS YOU WILL SPEND WEEDING THIS GRASS! DO NOT BUY!

This seed works great. The pictures I have attached are from about a pound of seed over about 1,000 sq feet. The first pic was 7/6/2018, second pic 7/27/2018, third pic 8/27/2018, forth pic 9/16/2018, and the last on 9/24/2018. I've found that the grass holds up very well to my tractor and truck driving over it. My soil is sandy. I put down some 10-10-10 the day I planted and then more later 'according to the directions'. I planted a total of 8 pounds of seed for 8,000 sq feet on a slight hill, and I have found these steps to work the best: 1. Till area 2. Rake to pull out roots, tilled dead grass, and to level the ground. This takes the most time, even with a tractor. 3. Spread seed with small hand held spreader. It's so fine, I like to see exactly how much is going out. 4. Spread straw(not hay) evenly over area. see first pic. I think it was about 2ish bails for the 1,000 sq feet. 5. To get good seed to ground contact, I drove my tractor back and forth over all over the straw and seed. I'm sure this could be done with a roller, but I don't have one, and the tractor didn't hurt the seed. 6. Spread fertilizer, 10-10-10 worked for me. 7. Water in enough for the fertilizer. 8. I then watered 1 time almost everyday for about a month pumping water from a pond with a gas pump. Not as convenient as having a sprinkler system on a timer. After that I only watered when needed. Mess up, not pictured, I added some brown top millet seed in my first try. Though it turned out ok. I had to cut the millet often to let the sun get to the zoysia. Mess up, I did not level area enough, I'll have to add some top dressing next growing season. I highly recommend this seed, I'll be planting a lot more of this next year. $40 worth of seed in pictures is hard to compete with, compared to buying sod for $400 ish

Not sure if these are Zoysia sprouts but I only have them where I seeded. Did I receive a bunch of weed seed? I have upped to 3 stars with the new picture. Definite Zoysia growing. Will see how the rest of the yard goes.

The seed, once sprouted is great. You have to understand there is a lot of soil preparation required before seeding and you have to keep the soil moist until germination.

I moved into a brand new home in Texas that was had Bermuda sod laid down for my move in. Within a few months, I realized the ground had zero nutrients to sustain any type of grass growth. I had to start from scratch, prep my soil, get the right amount of nutrients down to sustain grass growth, and I ordered this product. It has overtaken the Bermuda and the rye grass I had to plant. It’s not perfect yet, but it’s growing like crazy and will have my yard looking perfect, fence to fence soon. This seed is the best you can get for this type of Zoysia and recommended to me by a golf course super. I do have to feed a couple times a year, keep the ground watered, but it’s coming along nicely in the Dallas heat. Before planting, I would water, prep the soil, punch it, and then put this seed down. That will give you good success for max germination. If you just spread this out on dry dead soil, you have chance. Baby it like you would a small child and your yard will grow up to be super soft to walk on, lay down on under the stars, and be proud of. Good luck all!

This seed was a tad bit expensive.

These seeds worked perfectly. I live in an extremely hot and dry area of West Texas. The key here, is to make sure you rake seeds into the broken dirt and do not let any foot travel or anything that could pack the dirt down and do not plant the seed in any low spots. Make sure you level the yard as much as possible. This seed barely grew in the area where I walked to my water hose. Simple fix with steps and break the dirt up and re seed. Once grass start to show, I watered every other day and fertilized twice as much as was called for. 110+ degree heat and this grass stays as green as ever. (Took me three tries to get this seeding right). So hope it helps you who may be buying. It truly is a thick grass and I wouldn't consider any other grass again.